Faustin Linyekula’s MORE MORE MORE… FUTURE has its New York premiere at the Kitchen this week as part of FIAF’s Crossing the Line Festival (photo © Agathe Poupeney)
The Kitchen
512 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
October 12-15, $15, 8:00
212-255-5793
www.fiaf.org
Part of the “Endurance/Resistance/Inspiration” section of FIAF’s ninth annual Crossing the Line Festival, dancer/choreographer Faustin Linyekula’s more more more… future examines the past, present, and future of life in his native Democratic Republic of Congo. “We deserve more than the vanishing shadows of delusions. We deserve more than headlines and media compassion,” he writes about the evening-length piece, having its New York premiere October 12-15 at the Kitchen. “More than the false happiness that blinds our minds. More than assistance, we deserve justice. More than money, we deserve dignity. More than a glorious past, we long for a future.” Wearing colorful, oversized, enveloping costumes created by Lamine Badian Kouyaté/Xuly Bët at the very last minute, three dancers, including Linyekula, move to live music played onstage by a five-piece band led by music director and guitarist Flamme Kapaya, set to poems by political prisoner Antoine Vumilia Muhindo, a childhood friend of Linyekula’s. “To be positive is the most subversive. Celebrating is a way of resisting,” Linyekula notes.
When they were junior high school students in South Central Los Angeles in 1979, Angelo Moore and Norwood Fisher formed the core of Fishbone, what would soon become one of the most exciting live bands on the planet. Chris Metzler and Lev Anderson document the band’s rise and fall — and rise and fall, and rise and fall, etc. — in the stirring Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone. Using archival footage, old and new interviews, and playful animation, Metzler and Anderson follow the group — Moore and Fisher along with fellow founding members Chris Dowd, Walter “Dirty Walt” Kibby II, and Kendall Jones — through its many personal and financial struggles as it tries to deal with such socioeconomic issues as racism, violence, and the anti-liberal bias taking hold of the nation in Ronald Reagan’s 1980s. Fishbone held nothing back on such albums as In Your Face (1986), Truth and Soul (1988), The Reality of My Surroundings (1991), Give a Monkey a Brain and He’ll Swear He’s the Center of the Universe (1993), and Chim Chim’s Badass Revenge (1996), mixing in pop, punk, funk, ska, reggae, R&B, soul, jazz, and hardcore, prancing about the stage without shirts, diving into the crowd, and always speaking their mind, and they hold nothing back in Everyday Sunshine as well. Narrated by Laurence Fishburne, the film really picks up speed when it delves into the Rodney King beating and the mysterious circumstances involving Jones’s religious transformation and the band’s attempt at an intervention. The decidedly unusual tale also features an impressive lineup of talking heads offering their views on the history of Fishbone, including Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Perry Farrell from Jane’s Addiction, fIREHOSE’s Mike Watt, No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani and Tony Kanal, the Roots’ ?uestlove, Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hutz, Parliament-Funkadelic’s George Clinton, Primus’s Les Clayool, Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, Circle Jerk Keith Morris, Ice-T, and, perhaps most informatively, Columbia Records executive David Kahne, who lends fascinating insight into what made Fishbone great — and what kept them from greater success. While you definitely don’t have to know a thing about Fishbone to enjoy this very intimate documentary, longtime fans should eat it up. Everyday Sunshine has its New York theatrical premiere October 7-13 at the reRun Gastropub Theater in Brooklyn in conjunction with the release of Fishbone’s latest release, the seven-track EP Crazy Glue (DC-Jam, October 11, 2011). Metzler, Anderson, Moore, and Fisher will appear in person at many of this weekend’s screenings, at least one of which will also include a live performance.
